


Francis Forever

by ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Dead TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Dissociation, Gen, Ghost TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Toby Smith | Tubbo Misses TommyInnit, Toby Smith | Tubbo Needs a Hug, no beta we die like tommy, sorry about that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29767521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes/pseuds/ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes
Summary: “Why are you crying?”Tubbo just about goes the same way as Schlatt and has a heart attack. He looks towards the noise, wiping his bloody hand on his pants, trying not to let himself believe that it’s real.Because there’s a boy in front of him, in a L’Manberg uniform that went out of stock years ago, wearing a young Tommy’s face.-They bury Tommy on December 21st.
Relationships: Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit
Comments: 20
Kudos: 279
Collections: Completed stories I've read





	Francis Forever

**Author's Note:**

> title from francis forever by mitski. please look to the tags for trigger warnings.

Tubbo plans the funeral.

Quackity puts a hand on his shoulder, offers up sympathy, and Tubbo wants to punch him in the face. His pity tastes like bile and cherry cough medicine and it doesn't make anything better.

He shrugs off Quackity's hand and says "It's alright, Big Q. I can do it myself."

Tubbo goes to the bench and puts an axe through it. It doesn't break. The axe barely sinks in a few inches. Tubbo leaves it be and it doesn't make anything better.

He plans Tommy's funeral himself and almost wants to lie about the date when he sends out the invites. Some stupid, selfish part of him wants this to belong to him and him alone. He was Tommy's best friend and he doesn't want anyone else coming close to that. He doesn't want anyone to try and make it better. He's fucking drowning in this guilt and anger and misery and he just wants the ocean to himself. No one else should get to mourn Tommy as he does.

He doesn't do that, because he's a coward.

They bury Tommy on December 21st.

The day of the funeral is one of those sunny winter ones, where the light bounces off the snow and gets in his eyes. He could go blind. At least he wouldn't have to look at the casket.

He stares at his hands and watches as his skin blurs together with the snow until all the defining lines have been erased.

It's a quiet funeral. Tubbo hasn't been to a lot of funerals, but Schlatt's was rowdy and celebratory and mockery and this is not that. Tubbo would have probably killed someone if they tried to make this anything like Schlatt's funeral.

Or, if he's frank with himself, he probably would have broken down in tears, but he wants to pretend that he's strong enough to do the other thing.

He tries to give a speech. It starts out good and fine, but about half-way through it devolves into hiccuping sobs; HBomb rests a hand on his back and guides him to his seat again. Someone else gives a speech, but he thinks that the snow has gotten in his ears because he can’t hear a word of it.

Then people start walking away like this is something that they can walk away from. As if Tubbo’s whole life hasn’t ended in this chair, in front of this casket.

Tubbo found him in Logstedshire, at the bottom of the pillar. He doesn’t know how long he stayed there, screaming himself hoarse, Tommy in his arms, but he knows that Dream found him.

Dream had hugged him. Tubbo had practically keened, sobbing into the open shoulder, not able to get in a breath until Dream calmed him down. Dream had pried open his fingers, taking the sword that Tubbo hadn’t even noticed he was holding and setting it on the grass behind them.

Tubbo doesn’t want to think about what he might have done if Dream hadn’t been there.

"Are you coming?" Ranboo asks, voice shoving its way through the cotton. Tubbo wishes he had an excuse for why the words won’t come out. He wishes it was like the days after the festival, when the ringing nearly made him deaf, or in November when the smoke rubbed his throat raw, but there's no good reason at all. The words carve slits into his ribs and stay lodged inside.

Ranboo seems to take his silence as a response in itself and walks away.

And Tubbo stays, shivering, the build-up of tears making his head hurt, for so long that his fingers go numb. He tries to imagine that he's sitting on the bench with Tommy and then thinks about how he'll never do it again and nearly vomits.

Tommy died five days ago today. What is it with this country and the 16th?

Just before it starts to get dark, Connor comes into view. "Come on, kid, up and atem. You'll freeze to death if you stay out much longer."

He pulls Tubbo to his feet and ruffles his hair a little. Tubbo wraps his arms around himself and they make their way, stumbling, away from the funeral. They buried him behind the Holy Land because Tommy was nothing if not devout. 

They're standing on the edge, about to go into L'Manberg, when Tubbo’s chest tightens. “I don’t- I can’t-”

“You can stay with me if you want,” Connor says.

Tubbo nods.

They go back to Tommy’s house, where Connor is apparently staying, and part of it hurts but part of it is also comforting. Tubbo can’t put a finger on why.

“There’s not really a guest bed,” Connor starts. “But you can-”

“I can sleep downstairs, it’s alright.”

Tubbo climbs down the ladder, stomach tumbling over itself. He passes by the room filled wall to wall with scribbles. Tommy’s to-do list, forever unfinished, his wall of enemies. He tries not to look. He should stop climbing, but he doesn’t. He finally makes it to the lowest level that leads out into all the sewers.

_ Why did he climb down here? What is he doing? _ He should be back in New L’Manberg, fixing things, doing work, not in his ex-friend’s basement feeling sorry for himself. This is fucking pathetic. He has no right to this sadness. He’s the one who killed Tommy in the first place.

That’s when the sobs start, the ones he kept down at the funeral. The real ones, straight from his gut, ripping up his insides like a monster. It’s so much. It hurts so fucking much.

He wants Tommy back. He wants to talk to his friend again. He wants to feel Tommy’s arms wrap around him again, in that awkward way he always did, because Tommy never knew how to hug people, never learned. He’s going to be sick with how much he wants Tommy to hold him right now. He wants them young again, he wants the beginning of L’Manberg, he wants Business Bay and the stupid scams, he wants islands in the sky and Deo teaching them how to sword fight.

What happened to being too young to die? What happened to living forever?

How is he supposed to do  _ anything? _ Everything was supposed to come back to Tommy and Tubbo, no matter what. He was supposed to be able to come back to something.

Tubbo screams into his hand, biting down on the knuckle.

“Why are you crying?”

Tubbo just about goes the same way as Schlatt and has a heart attack. He looks towards the noise, wiping his bloody hand on his pants, trying not to let himself believe that it’s real.

Because there’s a boy in front of him, in a L’Manberg uniform that went out of stock years ago, wearing a young Tommy’s face.

“Are you alright?” The boy suddenly disappears and then reappears at his side, poking at him with a translucent finger. The finger passes through Tubbo’s arm and the boy giggles, doing it again. Tubbo jerks himself back, pushing up against the wall.

“What?” The boy sounds offended, and it’s such a  _ Tommy  _ way to say it, and Tubbo’s crying again. Prime, no, spare him this. He doesn’t want another Ghostbur. He doesn’t want some hollow echo of his best friend,  _ please. _

Finally, he manages to gasp out Tommy’s name, and the ghost smiles at him, mouth full of metal.

“Yeah! How’d you know?”

Tubbo takes a breath in. Pushes it out. Again and again, until he stops feeling his heart behind his eyes. “‘M Tubbo,” he finally manages.

Tommy pouts, poking at him again and paying no mind to the way Tubbo tries to push him back. “You don’t look like Tubbo.”

Tubbo knows that he’s talking about the scars. Prime, that one stings. He shoves it down again, pushing his legs out and away from his chest. “Grew up,” he mutters.

He pulls himself to his feet while the ghost watches. His legs are shaking so much he’s afraid he might drop again, but he doesn’t. 

Tubbo is taller than him. He can’t do this, he can’t.

He starts climbing the ladder and Tommy floats up next to him, brushing hands through his flesh that make him shiver. They stand at the top of the ladder, Tommy brushing his hands over items, giggling like a kid, monologuing to Tubbo about everything he finds.

Connor has somehow managed to sleep through it. Tubbo can’t imagine that anything has ever been louder.

“What do you wanna do?” Tubbo’s head is pounding, probably from all the crying. 

This is better than nothing. He gets… he gets something. Something of Tommy. That’s good, isn’t it? Is this a dream? Prime, he’s never sleeping again. He can’t live in a world where he wakes up from this.

Tommy sits on the ground outside, sticking his hands in the mud, a trance-like look on his face. “I’m tired, Tubbo,” Tommy’s young voice whines. “I’m sad.”   
  


Tubbo holds his face in his hands, resists the urge to cry and vomit and stab something, and then walks outside so he can kneel next to Tommy. The cold, snow-slush mud sinks into his pants. “Why’re you sad?”

Tommy’s pouting again, leaning closer to Tubbo. “I dunno.”

Fucking Prime.

He smiles, his heart lodged in his throat. “Wanna listen to a disc?”

Tommy’s frown turns into a grin and he nods vigorously, wiping the tears off his face. Tubbo swallows bile, grabbing a line of discs from his chest and stumbling over to the bench.

Tubbo sat on the bench the day Tommy died, staring numbly in the distance and listening to Cat, which Tommy would never admit was the favourite of his two most prized possessions. Dream hadn't given up Tommy's disc, so Tubbo had to listen to his own, one without the skips and scuffed bits that Tommy's had from being dragged through so much conflict.

Tubbo smiles at the ghost, barely holding back the urge to sob until his lungs give out, and asks what he wants to listen to.

"Chirp," the voice, suddenly quiet once more, says. "I like Chirp."

Tubbo's heart drops into his fucking stomach. "Okay," he chokes out. "Yeah. Yeah, I love Chirp. Chirp it is!"

He slides the disc into the jukebox, chest tight as he sits down. Tommy closes his eyes, gently humming along, swaying back and forth.

"I'm sorry for taking so long to come back," the ghost finally says. His voice is breathy and high, like a young child’s, and it makes Tubbo's stomach hurt.

"It's okay. I… I’m just glad you’re here, Tommy." Tommy's eyes open, lighting up as he claps.

Tubbo chuckles and feels his stomach bile get into his heart. His best friend could be immature but he wasn't a child. He's going to vomit. He leans back and lets the higher notes of Chirp settle in the air.

There’s not enough left in him to cry.

He lets the ache in his chest numb over. “How much do you remember, Tommy?”

Tommy frowns. “I don’t- I don’t… I remember… I don’t know.” Tears start pouring out of Tommy’s eyes. He babbles, hiding his face in his hands. Tubbo leans over and reaches out a hand to help wipe them up but stops. Right.

“Hey, it’s alright. You don’t gotta cry, Tommy. It’s- it’s okay if you don’t remember. It’s alright.”

Tommy wipes at his eyes, turning his head, ear on his knee, staring at Tubbo with that horrible look on his face. That unrecognizable, childish vulnerability. That look that the real Tommy wouldn’t have been caught dead with. Tubbo can’t do this.

But he’s not dealing with the real Tommy. Not the one he knew. This Tommy is what, ten? Younger?  _ The uniform is so big on him. _

He’s always been older than his best friend, but he’s never really  _ felt it _ until now.

Tommy is a kid, and he needs an adult, needs someone to take care of him. Tubbo drove his best friend to suicide. He’s not failing him again.

His hand hovers above Tommy’s back. “Do you wanna go back to L’Manberg?” Tommy, still pouting and sniffling, nods, floating up from the bench and wrapping his cold, phantom hands around Tubbo’s arm. Tubbo feels a shudder run through him but ignores it.

He guides Tommy down the Prime Path, slowing down whenever Tommy’s hands slip through his arm. “Hey, Tommy, can you close your eyes for me?”

“Why?” Tommy looks up at him. Fuck, he’s never going to get used to this, never going to be okay with it.

Tubbo smiles. “I’ve gotta surprise for you, but it’s only gonna work if you close your eyes.” Tommy’s mouth forms a little  _ o  _ and he nods, clamping his eyes shut, humming to Wait.

Tubbo guides him through the crater, making sure Tommy doesn’t look, shivering as the wet slush of half-melted snow gets into his shoes. He doesn’t know why Tommy isn’t allergic to water like Ghostbur is, but he won’t complain about it. All he can do now is guide his friend somewhere safe and dry.

He opens the doors to the apiary, relishing in the hot air on his skin. “Alright, you can open your eyes now.”

Tommy does, grins wide, floating over to the hives. He pokes at the holes in the honeycomb, passing through the hives, laughter ringing through the air.

Tubbo falls into a heap on the floor and cries.

**Author's Note:**

> I post every Sunday at 12am GMT, so subscribe if you want more Dream SMP works like this :)
> 
> Leave a comment, mayhaps?


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